Progress toward sustainable energy: global tracking framework 2015

Asian countries are making a vital contribution to achieving global sustainable energy goals, a new World Bank report finds. But while the region performs strongly on ensuring electricity access for people and using more modern renewable energy, there is room for further improvement on energy efficiency and access to clean, smoke-free cooking. The report is the second in a series that tracks the world’s progress toward the three goals of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative—universal energy access, doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewable energy by 2030. While the first edition from 2013 measured progress between 1990 and 2010, this edition focuses on the 2010-2012 period. Asia accounted for about 60 percent of the global progress on energy access and clean energy objectives during 2010-201 —according to the report titled “Progress Toward Sustainable Energy: Global Tracking Framework 2015”—contributing well beyond its share of global population and energy consumption. Asia’s performance on expanding modern renewable energy (from sources like solar, wind and geothermal) was particularly strong. Whereas globally, consumption of modern renewable energy grew by 4 percent per annum during 2010-2012, in Asia that growth was almost twice as fast at close to 8 percent. Asia also moved rapidly to expand access to electricity for its citizens growing the population with electricity by 0.9 percent annually over the tracking period 2010-2012, well ahead of the global rate of 0.6 percent.